Images are formed in silver halide color photographic materials by the dye that results from reaction between oxidized silver halide developing agent and a dye forming compound known as a coupler. It is known to retouch such dye images by selective destruction and/or removal of dye. Retouching techniques are described in photographic publications and literature, such as Professional Photographer, November 1989, Vol. 116, No. 2130, pages 44-48, Professional Photographer, December 1989, Vol. 115, No. 2131, pages 30-34, and in Harder et al. U. S. Pat. No. 4,990,430 issued Feb. 5, 1991.
A problem with the known methods of retouching is that they depend on the selective destruction or solubilization of dyes formed from couplers chosen for reasons other than their retouchability. Thus, it is difficult to differentially remove dye density of one color without also affecting dye of another color. This is particularly true of relatively stable dyes, such as those derived from pyrazoloazole couplers. In photographic elements containing magenta dye images formed from pyrazoloazole dye forming couplers, it is difficult to remove the magenta dye without also affecting the images formed from the cyan and yellow dyes.
The ability to retouch images is particularly desirable in materials used for commercial photography, where there frequently is the desire to get exactly the right color in a particular area of the image. Since reversal materials frequently are the photographic film of choice for commercial photography, it would be highly desirable to provide such materials with the ability to be retouched easily.
Silver halide color reversal films are typically associated with an indication for processing by a color reversal process. Typically this means that the film, its container, or its packaging, will have an indication on it that the film should be processed by a color reversal process. The indication may, for example, be simply a printed statement that the film is a "reversal film" or that it should be processed by a color reversal process, or simply a reference to a known color reversal process such as "Process E-6". A "color reversal" process in this context is one employing treatment with a non-chromogenic developer, followed by fogging unexposed silver halide, after which the element is treated with a color developer.
In a typical construction, color reversal elements do not contain any masking couplers, such as are commonly used in color negative elements. Furthermore, reversal films have a contrast (gamma) generally between 1.5 and 2.0, which is much higher than for typical negative materials. Moreover, reversal developer compositions typically are free of nucleophiles, such as hydroxylamines, which are found in developer compositions intended for use with color negative elements.